


Forte & Foible

by Ganymeme



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Gen, Suicidal Thoughts, more implied than explicit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-08
Updated: 2017-07-08
Packaged: 2018-11-29 13:28:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11441880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ganymeme/pseuds/Ganymeme
Summary: In the days after his failure of the Grey Warden contract, Zevran is left unmoored and floundering, confused and trying to not let it show.





	Forte & Foible

**Author's Note:**

> I've fiddled with this enough, it's gotta get posted before I tweak it to death. :P Thank you to BecauseDragonAge on Tumblr for the beta/edit help! (And for endulging my pain med induced rambling analysis of Zevran's timeline based on WoTv2.)

Three days and two nights ago Zevran Arainai had lured two Grey Wardens into an ambush, and somehow, he was not dead. As the sharp, grassy sting of healing salve continued to remind him, he was distinctly the opposite: terribly, bitterly, alive.

Zevran squinted at the crooked row of stitches in his shoe. It was hard to see, seated out here at the very edges of the dancing pool of firelight cast by the camp’s single fire. Not ideal for mending shoes, but it put Zevran’s back against a tree and tucked him away on the edges of the Wardens’ awareness.

That he was free enough to slip away like this was an alarming puzzle itself. He had been watched the first night, hard eyes following his every move. Surely, he had told himself, he would not see the sunrise. The Wardens would see sense and slit his throat in the night. (The thought had not been nearly as comforting as he’d expected.)

They had not seen sense, of course. Zevran woke that morning, and the next. Each day greeted by a brilliant sunrise, painting the distant rolling hills in glowing reds and golds. _Red sky in morning_ , sang the old fishwives of Antiva City in his head. Every morning since he had come south of the Waking Sea had brought that same blood-red warning. An omen, he had hoped, a promise of the death to come. Now, here he sat, mending a torn shoe.

“Spar with me.” A heavily accented, slightly husky voice interrupted his frowning contemplation.

Zevran jerked his head up and stared. Warden Mahariel stood there, looking down at him. Her face was impassive, wiped flat of the good humour Zevran had seen earlier that evening. Gone was the expressive curl of her wide mouth, the mocking arch of her brows and bright flash of teeth as she bantered and teased.

Zevran glanced over the rest of her, evaluating. Relaxed posture, weight on one hip - not aggressive. She held her sabre by its scabbard, the hilt canted at an angle, and her right hand rested on the sheathed misu at her hip.

“I - what?” _Smooth, Zevran_ , he scoffed to himself.

That impassive face moved: a frown wrinkled her brow.

“Did I say it wrong? Suh-par?” She emphasized the word strangely. Zevran chuckled and shook his head.

“No, no!” He hastened to assure her, fixing what he hoped was a winning smile on his face. “You simply… surprise me.”  
Zevran tilted his head and studied her. She wore only an odd Dalish tunic, leggings, and boots. His eyes lingered on the hard muscles of her bare arms. No armour, and edged blades. A dangerous combination.

“You wish to spar with me, the one sent to kill you?” He hated to remind her of this but they had no training weapons. Any sparring called for live steel. Risky, even when crossing blades with a trusted partner.

Mahariel jerked her chin - a dismissal. “We will guard our blades, of course. But I must see how you fight in close quarters.”

Zevran hummed and set down his shoe. Standing brought him past her eye level, and close enough that her boot brushed his bare foot. She met his eyes with that same flat, steely look, not giving an inch. Zevran was taller than her, and yet it seemed as if she was staring down at him. _Dalish arrogance_ , he thought with disgust. He watched her eyes flick to the tattoo curling down his cheek, watched her mouth twitch in what may have been the beginnings of a sneer.

His own feelings stayed buried deep. Zevran beamed at her and stepped aside to sweep a dramatic bow.

“I would be honoured,” he purred, a nobleman accepting a dance. He glanced up at her from the depth of the bow - she was still staring at him, intense, inscrutable. Straightening up (was that a smile he saw trying to break past the tense jaw?), he asked lightly, “Have you ever fought against a rapier before?”

Finally those pale eyes looked away from him, towards his sword, propped against his pack.

“No,” she said. And Zevran grinned.

 

He won their first bout entirely by accident. It was not, precisely, a surprise. He had the advantage of experience after all - sabres were hardly uncommon around the Rialto Bay. But though his pride cried out against it, Zevran had resolved to throw the first bout to ensure his captor won. He was certain that if he did not hold back, he would beat Mahariel far too easily for her to sleep comfortably at night.

She had struck first, closing the distance and making an advance that Zevran parried easily with his dagger. She fell back in a high guard, and he drew it low with a feint that flowed smoothly into a lunge, angled high. The cloth-bound rapier tip thumped heavily into her shoulder.

“ _Fen!”_ Mahariel’s eyes widened and she flinched back. Zevran disengaged instantly, drawing back several long steps. He watched. They stood in silence, both breathing deeply but far from winded. Mahariel cocked her head to the side. Her eyes darted from Zevran’s sword to his feet, along the ground, and back up. It was the reach of the rapier that surprised her, he decided.

She shook out her arm, rolled the shoulder that had been hit, and grinned at him, broad and sharp. A thrill crawled up his spine.

“Again,” Mahariel said, voice low and tense. She settled back into a ready stance. Alike but not identical to that of northern sabre fighters. Interesting. He flashed her a grin of his own and let her take the initiative.

He also succeeded in letting her win the next two bouts with each bout lasting longer than the one before. She pressed him hard and fast. Too fast, at times, for calculation to rule over instinct. The night was cooling swiftly as they fought, but patches of sweat stained both combatant’s shirts.

The third bout ended almost as soon as it began and again in Mahariel’s favour. She switched suddenly, the misu moving to take dominance on the attack, capturing his point and dragging it across the line of his dagger. The sabre darted low and fast, and bit a burning line across his stomach. Mahariel was abruptly much closer to him, her chest heaving and a fierce grin on her face.

Zevran startled backwards, very nearly losing his weapons. He gaped. He had been planning on _winning_ this round. She leaned in, the curved blade pressing hard against his stomach, scant inches between them. Hot breath gusted against his ear when she spoke, and he couldn’t tell where the pounding of his own heartbeat ended and hers began.

“Stop -” the blade pushed harder, bruising, “- holding back,” she hissed. This close, Zevran could see that those hard, pale eyes were a solid, stormy grey.

He laughed, light and airy. “What makes you think I’ve been holding back, Warden? You have bested me yet again.”

“You are fast to parry, but your returns - they end slower than they start,” she said. The skin on her nose was peeling, he saw, and that taunting smirk began in her eyes, lids shuttering half-closed as she swept her gaze over him, scornful.

“Unless I am wrong, and you are as bad as a bumbling fawn.”

Zevran bristled and flushed, flinching backwards as a hot rush of pride uncoiled in his chest, all teeth and claws. _Bumbling fawns_ did not become fledged Crows at the age of 15!

He twisted his blades free and stepped back. She let him go, that damned smirk still painted across her face. He met it with a scowl.

“Very well,” he said sharply. To the Void with calculations and appeasing captors. “Again.”

 

Three more times Mahariel bested him. Twice, Zevran held her at sword point, but she still won three of five on him after her taunting. His pride was a restless dragon in his chest, matching the burn of his lungs. They were both soaked with sweat and panting for breath when they disengaged the fifth and final time.

Night had fallen completely by then, the darkness low and heavy, stars seldom winking out from behind the thick clouds. The only light was the distant campfire, coals burning low. They circled slowly, feet dragging in the dust. Zevran’s back was to the fire when Mahariel tilted her head. Her eyes caught the light and flashed, elf-bright in the dark. She still stood at the ready. Zevran bit back a groan and lifted his weapons, shoulder muscles screaming and wrists aching.

Mahariel laughed, a hoarse bark of sound, and lowered her own sword.

“Enough, I think,” she said, her voice ragged. Her shoulders sagged. Red firelight danced with blue-black shadows over the edges and curves of her body as precision-perfect posture gave way to slumped shoulders. That, at least, molified the dragon in his chest.

He let the groan escape and the point of his rapier fall.

“Dios mio, at last! You have the stamina of ten horses!” He had trained for harder and longer, with wounds more severe and less healed than those he was currently sporting, but she did not need to know that. If he could not fool her on his skill, he could at least play up his all-too-real exhaustion.

Mahariel scoffed, then shifted her weapons to one hand and crossed an arm over her breast, face stone-smooth. Zevran blinked and hesitated, uncertain. Her actions had all the movement of ritual, but he could not quite -

She bowed and the instinct of courtesy had him bowing in return, foot sliding back and hands spreading as much as possible while holding weapons.

“Ar mirthala ma seranna,” she said. They were the politest words he had her speak since he woke in the dirt at her feet, but he had no idea what they meant.

Zevran’s confusion must have shown on his face, because a smile ghosted across hers when she added, “I am thanking you for the…”

She hesitated, frowning. Zevran grinned.

“The dance?”

 _That_ earned him one of those dramatically mocking arches of her eyebrow.

“Directly, it is ‘honour’ or ‘respect’,” she said, something softening at the edges of her mouth. Almost a smile, he would bet good coin on it. “But yes, the dance.”

“Ah.” Zevran’s quick wit was sluggish, dazed. That almost-smile was a victory; the bow, a show of respect. He knew the steps of this dance: how to win the trust of a mark. But trust was not what he wanted, was it? Baffled and weary, he offered her only a wan smile and turned away. He tucked his dagger into his belt and began stripping the padding off his sword. Where, he wondered, had the clarity of the past month gone? How was it that now, with his goal within reach, he foundered, a ship adrift in doldrums?

 

Eight days after he failed to either kill or be killed by the Grey Wardens, Zevran was ankle-deep in mud, soaked to the bone, and slowly suffocating to death thanks to the sopping wet wool scarf wrapped around his face. Suffocation was nearly a greater concern than the three hurlocks circling him, spitting and snarling. A fourth lay dead on the ground, black blood seeping out like a gruesome cloak beneath the corpse.

Zevran risked a glance over his shoulder and swore. Several yards of distance and a large hillock isolated him from the others. He could only hope the darkspawn were too stupid to take advantage of their three-on-one odds.

The largest of the three bellowed, clattering a crude iron blade against its shield. The other two hissed and snarled and rushed him, jagged spears keen for his blood. Zevran sidestepped both, blades dancing out, scoring shallow cuts on the right-most attacker.

They skidded past him, staggering in the slick mud. Zevran sucked in a desperate, soggy breath and settled his weight on the balls of his feet. He eyed the sword-wielder, calculating, mind racing. Isolated. Alone. Three enemies who wanted to kill him. Like a distant dirge, bells on a far gentle wind, it rose within him. _Give in_ , it whispered, _give up_.

The darkspawn had destroyed empires and kingdoms, obliterated cities. What was one Crow beneath their feet?

The two spear-bearers lurched and howled, spinning themselves around. The big one with the sword lunged then, bellowing.

Zevran twisted aside, raising sword and dagger into a high guard as he made a retreat. The hurlock swung its sword wildly. It was a nasty-looking weapon, but cumbersome, and its wielder had no evident discipline. A half-dozen possible lines of attack had his muscles twitching, Zevran readied himself - _Just let it hit you. Let it end._

The hurlock bellowed again and advanced, brandishing sword and shield both.

“Crow!” The shout was followed by a hound’s baying.

Sword-and-shield swung towards the voice and Zevran retreated again, putting a sword’s length and more between himself and the hurlock. A Mabari barrelled over the hill and slammed into the spear-bearer furthest from Zevran. The lean dark figure of Warden Mahariel followed, blades gleaming blackly in the rain-stained daylight. With a whoop and a laugh, she lunged for the second spear.

“Fight, Crow!” She cried, “Or are these bana’ssin too much for you?”

Bared teeth and taunting eyes turned on him as she swiftly gutted the hurlock. Zevran bristled, the insult of pride pulling his spine straight and chin high. He snarled and turned on sword-and-shield. The hurlock had made an abortive move back towards its compatriots, but Zevran closed the distance swiftly, mud sucking at his feet the whole way.

Crude weapons and crude armour, big and brash - and no challenge for his rapier’s shining point. The monster fell with a gurgling cry, steel piercing its lungs. Past his thumping heartbeat and strangled panting for breath, Zevran heard the wet crunch of a Mabari shattering bone. Three hurlocks all down, joining their fourth in the mud. He yanked the scarf away from his face, panting for air free of sodden wool.

Mahariel’s gaze was approving as she strode over to him, already wiping her blades clean.

“Stabbed like fish,” she said, circling the corpse at his feet, “Very good.”

She turned to him, feet braced wide, balanced for battle on uncertain footing. She frowned, and sheathed her weapons.

“You can do better,” the words were sharp, her voice severe, “I have seen it. Why not now?”

Zevran scoffed and turned to scan the horizon. Low-hanging clouds over a dark mass of trees, and piercing them, the looming bulk of distant mountains. The Ferelden sky was wide and the landscape wild, but it all pressed close in that moment, as tight as any narrow dark room in a hidden house. He took a moment to rally his words, to wrap a ragged cloak of good cheer around himself.

“A cramp in my side, dear Warden, nothing more,” he said. The smile he turned on her felt as brittle as badly dried clay.

She stared at him, as silent and inscrutable as ever. Did she believe him? Should he smile brighter, laugh louder? Was he even actually smiling? His face ached.

The Mabari trotted over to Mahariel, dropped a severed arm at her feet and sat heavily. Mud splattered up her legs. She only broke eye contact when she bent to scratch the dog’s head.

“Do not allow it to happen again, Crow,” she said. He could not read her face, could not see her clearly as she spoke more to the ground than to him. Then she turned and walked away. She took the arm with her, tossing it unceremoniously on top of the nearest corpse before heading to the next.

Zevran closed his eyes and turned his face upwards into the pattering rain. His heart still raced, though slower now, and his breathing had steadied. With the flush of battle fading he could feel the cool damp air on his skin, could hear the muted roar festering in the back of his mind.

 _Do not allow it to happen again._ What had she meant by that? Surely she could not suspect the thoughts, the yearning, that had chased him across half the world. Perhaps she suspected him of some lesser, more nefarious, purpose. Ah, Lady Fortune was a cruel jester, to saddle him with so sharp-eyed and suspicious a master. No Crow master would have been so forgiving. Giving any less than everything was a failure, and failure was death.

He opened his eyes and stared unblinking at the grey sky. The rain was lessening, little more than a heavy, spitting mist. The thought swam sluggish to the surface: did she, perhaps, not believe that failure meant death?

“Crow! Come help!”

Zevran startled, and shook his head at his own foolishness. Then shook his head a second time, leaning sword against his side to wring out his hair. Here he was, woolgathering in the rain like some foolish Chant-singer meditating on the Maker’s mysteries.

There was work to be done - a Blight to be fought. Any son of Antiva, even a simple elven Crow, knew the threat of Blight. Four hundred years, but still his city was scarred, if you knew where to look. Zevran shoved his questions and his fears away, back down deep. They did not matter now, not with the world at stake.

**Author's Note:**

> alternate titles considered: "Zevran is Confused(TM) by Kylare Mahariel" or "not-at-all-innocent elf is surprisingly bad at cheating"


End file.
